Evans, C. Stephen, Kierkegaard on Faith and the Self - KRITIKE: An ...

KRITIKE VOLUME TWO NUMBER ONE (JUNE 2008) 149-153
Book Review
<strong>Evans</strong>, C. <strong>Stephen</strong>, <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> on
Faith and the Self: Collected Essays 1
Robert C. Cheeks
Given the spiritual disorder of our age, the ever-present
pneumopathology of consciousness, we might be forgiven for being a
bit confused, anxious, and just a little depressed. Consequently, it falls
to each of us to ignore the “autonomous” philosophers, who are in reality the
closed system philodoxers (sophists) demanding the end to the quest and
search those dusty old tomes wherein we might stumble across order, truth,
and a suggestion or two on just how to address the “reflective action” inherent
in the concrete human being. To be sure the quest is a formidable challenge,
but no one said life is easy, after all Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates had to
contend with their own Sophists!
So, if you are inclined to engage in the act of philosophizing, you
should understand that a real philosopher is one “whose psychic sensorium
responds to eternal being.” 2 And, to make a finer point, Ellis Sandoz of
Louisiana State University, wrote, “A (second) consequence is plainly a
substantial, even revolutionary redefinition of the meaning of philosophy itself,
especially in the decisive points of: (a) underling the loving tension toward the
divine Reality in open existence as central; (b) attenuating or abandoning the
Scholastic convention separating faith and reason as supernatural and natural,
respectively; and (c) discarding as egophany (defiant self assertion claiming
independence from a transcendent ground) the arrogant pretense of
autonomous reason as its originator in self-sufficient human speculators.” 3
One philosopher who adheres in many ways to Sandoz’s revolutionary
definition, is Soren Kirkegaard, often identified as the “father of
existentialism.” And, a book that both broadly and deeply explores the
philosophy and theology of Soren <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> is Baylor University Professor
of Philosophy, C. <strong>Stephen</strong> <strong>Evans</strong>’s <strong>Kierkegaard</strong>: On Faith and the Self, Collected
Essays (Baylor University Press, 2006).
<strong>Evans</strong> tells us that <strong>Kierkegaard</strong>’s project was to challenge not only the
Danish government in its establishment of a national religion, thereby deemphasizing
personal responsibility for one’s own soul, and “to legitimize the
1 Waco: Baylor University Press, 2006. 385 pp.
2 See Eric Voegelin, “Eternal Being in Time,” in Anamnesis (Missouri: University of
Missouri Press, 1990).
3 See Ellis Sandoz, “The Philosophers Vocation: The Voegelinian Paradigm,” in Essays
from the APSA Annual Meeting, Eric Voegelin Society, (2007), 1.
© 2008 Robert C. Cheeks
http://www.kritike.org/journal/issue_3/cheeks_june2008.pdf
ISSN 1908-7330

150 KIERKEGAARD ON FAITH AND THE SELF
status quo of an emerging bourgeois culture,” 4 but also to challenge the notion
that Europeans of his era were intellectual giants rather than “imaginative
midgets, lacking the deep ‘passions’ that make human life worth living.” 5
Significantly, the “challenge” in which <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> engaged was a
critical response to the formidable Enlightenment philosopher Georg W. F.
Hegel and his claim of developing a “system” that had the deleterious effect of
bringing philosophical discourse to “finality.” <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> vehemently denied
not only Hegel’s systemic pomposity but also his hubristic efforts to defend
Christianity in an objective language.
<strong>Evans</strong> has segregated his book into six parts of three to five essays
each. The “parts” each develop a pertinent theme: Part One is the Introduction,
Part Two: <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> the Philosopher, Part Three: <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> on Faith, Reason, and
Reformed Epistemology, Part Four: <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> on Ethics and Authority, Part Five:
<strong>Kierkegaard</strong> on Self: Philosophical Psychology, and Part Six: the Conclusion.
The critical argument that the author puts forth is that <strong>Kierkegaard</strong>
has, by and large, been misread. That our assumed understanding of the
philosopher’s project are, in fact, “misinterpretations,” caused in large measure
by the French existentialist, Albert Camus. <strong>Evans</strong>’s project is to examine the
notion that <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> is an “irrationalist” both in terms of beliefs and choice.
“At the same time that I dispel the myths about <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> the irrationalist,”
<strong>Evans</strong> writes, “I must clear the way to hear the <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> who demands that
we reject the view that human reason is a timeless godlike faculty. Instead of
talking about Reason, we need to focus on the actual reasoning of historically
situated, subjectively conditioned, finite human beings.” 6
<strong>Evans</strong> describes <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> as “perhaps the greatest Christian thinker
since the Middle Ages.” 7 One example is <strong>Kierkegaard</strong>’s critique of Hegel’s
response to Kantian skepticism, where he argues that human beings are indeed
capable of “knowledge of the external world” 8 but only by incorporating “faith
or belief.” The author explains that <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> shows that the only objective
truth the person may know “as actual” is his own reality, that “the actuality of
those other realities that is believed” 9 is described by <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> as an
“‘approximative’ type of knowledge.” 10
It is here <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> brilliantly establishes the boundary of noetic
consciousness as the person moves into a mode of pneumatic differentiation in
his search for the divine. <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> has shown that even at the extreme pole
of the immanent world-reality the truth of existence requires fides and that
fundamental requirement points us toward the transcendent. <strong>Kierkegaard</strong>’s
critique of Hegel’s response to Kantian skepticism illuminates the flaws in
4 <strong>Evans</strong>, op cit., 4.
5 Ibid., 5
6 Ibid., 8.
7 Ibid., 9.
8 Ibid., 40-1.
9 Ibid., 41.
10 Ibid.

R. CHEEKS 151
Hegel’s closed system which inevitably collapses under the weight of what in
reality is a egophanic revolt.
<strong>Evans</strong> shows that at the core of <strong>Kierkegaard</strong>’s theology is a rejection
of the idea that we may objectively “know” God. Faith, or belief, is another
matter. “But note,” <strong>Evans</strong> writes, “that the recognition of the “subjective”
grounds of the belief in no way entails that the content of the belief must be
subjective.” 11
Therefore, the process of belief in God has its beginnings in the
noetic exegesis that may be partially constituted by objectivity. However, it is
within the pneumatic differentiation that the spiritual irruption occurs where
the individual begins to develop a consciousness that is attracted to and seeks
the metaleptic reality of communion with God. This communion of being and
God is achieved by means of prayer or mediation, occurring in the Metaxy, in a
state of “ascent through the via negativa” 12 —where one seeks “immunity” from
the collapse of order and the distortions inherent in the immanent worldreality.
<strong>Evans</strong> provides in-depth explications of <strong>Kierkegaard</strong>’s use of the role
of irony and humor, as well as a critique of the misuse of language,
foundationalism, and the role of historical criticism in the examination of the
Christian faith. His essays on <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> that include a comparative
examination of the project of the reform theologian/philosopher Alvin
Plantinga, were my personal favorites and clearly illustrates the author’s talent
at relating complex ideas for the lay reader.
The penultimate Part Five, <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> on the Self: Philosophical Psychology,
present four essays that brilliantly examine and explicate the human person in
terms of “neighborly love,” <strong>Kierkegaard</strong>’s famous “leap of faith,” the
difficulties inherent in skepticism, and the will as it is predicated on our
“desires and passions.”
<strong>Kierkegaard</strong> tells us that God initiates this communion between being
and God within the psyche. “It is the experience of meeting God,” <strong>Evans</strong>
writes, “which produces the passion of faith...Such an encounter may properly
be said to be the ground of faith without constituting evidence for faith.” 13
Thus, we have the <strong>Kierkegaard</strong>ian “leap of faith,” which in reality is no leap at
all because as <strong>Evans</strong> writes, “The believer both knows what he is leaping to,
and why he is leaping.” 14
In the experience of meeting God the human person must consider
the “truth” of his life prior to the theophanic event. <strong>Evans</strong> argues that, “The
encounter with the God in time makes it possible for an individual to recognize
the bankruptcy of autonomous reason, but it does not make it necessary. What
11 Ibid., 62.
12 See Stefan Rossbach, “Understanding in Quest of Faith: The Central Problem in
Eric Voegelin’s Philosophy,” in Essays from the APSA Annual Meeting, Eric Voegelin Society
(2007), 10.
13 <strong>Evans</strong>, op cit., 128.
14 Ibid., 129.

152 KIERKEGAARD ON FAITH AND THE SELF
is necessary is the relinquishment of pride and the acquisition of humility.” 15
This “relinquishment of pride” is the voluntary surrender of self, as an act of
will, to the Creator. It is being rejecting the libido dominandi in order to do
God’s Will and it constitutes one of two essential transcendent acts required of
man in order to move beyond the structure of the immanent world-reality to a
“state of aphtharsia or imperishing.” 16
For <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> the most radical expression of human experience is
the Incarnation-God made man. The Incarnation is the ultimate act of God’s
healing, where as Catholic University philosophy professor, Msgr. Robert
Sokolowski wrote, “the divine Logos assumes a full human nature that was not
diminished in any way through its union with the Word. Human nature, as
well as human reason, is healed, not replaced or overcome, by its union with
the word of God.” 17
<strong>Kierkegaard</strong> referred to the Incarnation as both an “absolute paradox”
and an “offense” to those whose existence lay only in the spatio-temporal
reality dominated as it is by ideological distortion. However, the Incarnation,
symbolizing a pneumatic differentiation within the psyche-the place of
actualization for the human/divine relationship-represents, “truth emerging in
the process of history,” 18 coming into existence in both the immanent-world
reality and the theophanic process.
The fides experienced in the truth in reality of the Incarnation-the most
singular event in history- can generate additional insights that transcend the
experience of the initial pneumatic differentiation, dependent of course on the
will and pneumatic acuity of the person participating. This experience, of
loving God and being loved by God, knows no boundaries in time or eternity;
it exists in time and the timeless. It is the existence of being in grace.
<strong>Evans</strong> argues that <strong>Kierkegaard</strong>’s concern was not to defend the
“reasonableness” or unreasonableness of Christianity but rather “to argue the
impossibility of neutrality. When reason encounters the paradox, faith and
offense are both possible; what is not possible is indifference.” 19
Evan’s <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> on Faith and the Self: Collected Essays is an erudite and
provocative examination of the philosopher’s project that rejects those modern
critiques that have distorted <strong>Kierkegaard</strong>’s work. <strong>Evans</strong> shows that
<strong>Kierkegaard</strong> successfully challenged the distortions initiated by the
Enlightenment project, that he was intimately aware of the limits of human
reason, and that he shared with the classical philosophers an understanding of
the structure of reality as existing in tension with eristics, the “climate of
opinion,” and Hegelian dialectics. <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> boldly rejected the death of
15 Ibid., 130.
16 See Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, Vol. 34 (Missouri: University of Missouri Press,
2006), 151.
17 Robert Sokolowski, “Philosophy and the Christian Act of Faith,” in Christian Faith
and Human Understanding (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2006), 36.
18 See “Truth and History,” in Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, Vol. 17 (Missouri:
University of Missouri Press, 2000), 316-21.
19 <strong>Evans</strong>, op cit., 131.

R. CHEEKS 153
God demanded by modernity and instead explicated the divine purpose of
man. In essence he became the “viator in the Christian sense” 20 seeking the
truth of reality within an eschatological denouement in communion with God.
References
Robert C. Cheeks is an independent scholar from Lisbon, Ohio, United States
<strong>Evans</strong>, C. <strong>Stephen</strong>, <strong>Kierkegaard</strong> on Faith and the Self: Collected Essays (Waco: Baylor
University Press, 2006).
Rossbach, Stefan, “Understanding in Quest of Faith: The Central Problem in
Eric Voegelin’s Philosophy,” in Essays from the APSA Annual Meeting,
Eric Voegelin Society (2007).
Sandoz, Ellis, “The Philosophers Vocation: The Voegelinian Paradigm,” in
Essays from the APSA Annual Meeting, Eric Voegelin Society, (2007).
Sokolowski, Robert, “Philosophy and the Christian Act of Faith,” in Christian
Faith and Human Understanding (Washington: Catholic University of
America Press, 2006).
Voegelin, Eric, “Eschatology and the Philosophy: The Practice of Dying,” in
Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, Vol. 34 (Missouri: University of
Missouri Press, 2006).
___________, “Eternal Being in Time,” in Anamnesis (Missouri: University of
Missouri Press, 1990).
___________, “Truth and History,” in Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, Vol. 17
(Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2000).
20 See “Eschatology and the Philosophy: The Practice of Dying,” in Collected Works of
Eric Voegelin, Vol. 34 (Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2006), 147.